Airbnb Is Fighting Paris's Strict Laws with Century 21 Partnership

Paris's local government has been putting roadblocks up for Airbnb for the last year, requiring all homes to be registered with the city and limiting hosts to only 120 days of Airbnb rentals. Much of Paris's concern stemmed from the city's already expensive housing costs and the fact that many of the Airbnbs available on the homeshare site were illegally being opened up by subletters, who themselves were renting the apartments from unknowing landlords. But now, Airbnb may have found a solution to its Parisian problèmes. In a groundbreaking partnership with Century 21 real estate agents, Airbnb will now open the lines of communications between would-be Airbnb hosts and landlords when the lease is signed, essentially authorizing from move-in that the apartment or home is available to rent on Airbnb. (The Airbnb will still need to be registered with the city.)

Why would landlords (or Century 21, for that matter) agree to work with Airbnb? Money, money, money. As a rider in leases facilitated by Century 21, the host gets 70 percent of their Airbnb revenue (the booking cost minus Airbnb's three percent cut), their landlord receives 23 percent, and Century 21 takes seven percent. While losing 30 percent of their potential earnings may turn off potential hosts, the deal prevents them from being kicked off the site entirely, which the city government required the site to do to illegal sublets in December, as TechCrunch reported.

While it may seem like cheating the system, Airbnb's logic is sound. "With the Airbnb-friendly lease, subletting will be much better supervised. Moreover, this deal does not dry up the supply of housing in tense areas but encourages subletting of occupied homes," Airbnb said in a statement. So far, the Airbnb-friendly lease agreements will be limited to certain arrondissements in Paris, but may be expanded to Century 21's more than 800 French branches if it is successful. As cities around the world pick up the fight against Airbnb and the alleged rent hikes it causes when apartments are used exclusively by Airbnbs, rather than by residents, initiatives like the Century 21 partnership may prove to be the way forward. This could especially be the case in cities like New York and Madrid, where the company is being hit by the hardest regulations.